


world in a grain of sand || heaven in a wild flower

by scribbleb_red



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: AFTG Reverse Big Bang 2020, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Andrew and Neil are even smaller, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fairy Tale Elements, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Magic, Neil Josten saves the day, Wings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:28:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23140009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribbleb_red/pseuds/scribbleb_red
Summary: Our favourite small boys are even smaller in this story about fairy princes, magic and the power of dreams.Written for the AFTG Reverse Big Bang and inspired by the incredible art of our dearest Godot.
Relationships: Aaron Minyard & Andrew Minyard, Neil Josten & Aaron Minyard, Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 35
Kudos: 57





	1. prologue: world in a grain of sand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Like so, sing the swallows: there is nothing so implausible as the world, nothing so nonsensical – the grey bud of the willow, silky and soft; the silk-white throat of the cobra. 
> 
> And not like so, replies the world: I will hunt you, trap you, hurt you, it says, before a meadow arches its back and a million colours flare outwards, bursting into bloom.

_“Storytelling is a dangerous vocation, for the fairies punish those who return to tell their secrets.” – Marina Warner_

_Yeki bood. Yeki nabood._

This is how the world’s best storytellers start: it was so, it was not so; it was like this, it was not like this; there was a time, there was never a time.

They are right to start this way, and they are not.

For this is also how the swallows start their stories – carrying songs and whispers between their feathers, crossing countries and oceans, passing between the quick and the dead. Swallows are talkative birds, and they like to share their secrets to those willing to listen and learn.

It was they who taught the world about stories, about Faerie, about the invisible and great magics that stir the earth.

Like so, sing the swallows: there is nothing so implausible as the world, nothing so nonsensical – the grey bud of the willow, silky and soft; the silk-white throat of the cobra. 

And not like so, replies the world: _I will hunt you, trap you, hurt you_ , it says, before a meadow arches its back and a million colours flare outwards, bursting into bloom.

 _Like so_ , trill the swallows: there was once a little faery prince who was no more than three inches high, who was made of sunlight and shadows, who rode a wild cat and outwitted a fox, who fought ravens upon the darkest night and killed a king on the brightest day, who saw into another’s soul, and raised a hero from their enchanted sleep.

 _And not like so_ , echoes the response: there was never such a warrior, only a boy with wings full of stars and a desire to live, only a child who flew and flew until he found a reason to stay. His story is nothing but dreams.

But such is the way of the swallow tales, the fairy tales, which remind us how the world has always been strange and impossible and made of magic. 

This story starts _yeki bood, yeki nabood_.

And it is the story the swallows told, still fresh as daylight on a blank page.


	2. Lammas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dawn was just breaking, the hem of the sky beginning to whiten, and as the sun rose something strange was happening.
> 
> Two fairies – whose lives had been carved between nightmares – ran into each other in the land of dreams.
> 
> “Who are you?” They said at the same time. Again in unison: “Wait. You first.”
> 
> They stared at each other – eyes the colour of an autumn sky met a gaze that was cold and silver as the moon. Two sets of attention narrowed. Silence hung in the air like a new promise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the first chapter of this story - the amazing art is all thanks to Godot's beautiful imagination. Thank you for sharing this story with me.

**I - Lammas**

**** **_Blackthorn, basil, poppy, and clover_ **

****

_*_

There was once, in an ancient green country, a wild and magical forest.

Back then, it was the brightest of forests – jewel-green leaves topped the trees that were the tallest and most glorious of the trees in all the land; jewel-bright song burst from the birds that darted between the branches and the flowers; fruits and berries grew in abundance and their taste was jewel-sharp: tart and tangy and perfect.

The forest sprawled across mountains and over plains. It thrived along the curves of the rivers and cast its gentle shadows over the lakes and ponds so that the soft-footed fawn or chatty robin, could come to drink and play and dream in the comfort of the forest.

In the boughs of the trees, between the shadows and the lights, lived the fae. Tiny little creatures – some with horns, some with feathers, some with bark-skin faces, some furred and silk-soft as the moon moth – that flittered and chittered and danced in their circles to sing the seasons of the year.

They lived within their courts, seelie of the light and unseelie of the dark, each playing their pranks on the other kind but only truly competing for the best parties, the greatest hunts. There was festival of the longest night at Yule and the great dance on the longest day at Lithe; through the spring there was singing, welcoming in new beginnings and new life; and come the harvest time there was offerings and merrymaking as they gave thanks for the year and all the bounty that the forest gave them.

It was a happy and beautiful time.

Then something went wrong.

_(Maybe it is the nature of beautiful things to be marred and broken)._

It started with a fairy who was born without any wings – not even the whisper thin wings of a mymaridae wasp.

Though he was not the only wingless fairy, he was the first to be born this way. He could not – without help – join the festivals that were held in the treetops nor partake in the great many dances. And his Court – though they adored him – could never give him what he wanted: the ability to fly.

Perhaps this would not have been so horrible, had the fairy not also been so proud.

His magic was strong. His mind was brilliant. Of all the fairies, it was only he who could charm the birds and outsmart the foxes and he never lost in a contest that involved raw power. But then when the games were done and the day over, all the other fairies would fly away and he would be left in whatever bough or meadow or forced to take a lift with one of the others and he would be angry and frustrated and wish upon every star that things could just be _fair._

He grew bitter. As time passed, it was no longer enough to win at flashy competitions or show off against the best and brightest animals of the forest.

He wanted more.

So he travelled to the very edge of the forest to where the mud men lived – the giants with no wings and no magic. Sometimes he granted them wishes and other times cursed their homes. He occasionally stole their children and later swapped them for his own. He saw their capriciousness and cruelty and matched it. He learnt to hate where he came from and to love the power that he could hold over these stupid, lumbering, impotent creatures. It didn’t matter that they were tall or strong because they were nothing in the face of what he could do.

He showed other fairies what they could do to the mud men – creating changelings, adding mud-blooded children to the hunts (and oh what fun could be had with a stupid little creature like a mud child), taking promises off giant tongues and spinning them into amusing little curses that could steal a mudman’s voice or erase a mudwoman’s memory.

Most of the fae were disgusted and told him to stop, but some began to follow him. They took part in his games. They chose to follow a wingless fae. He became their leader: the ruler of a new Court. 

And still, he knew there was more to be taken – more power, more respect – and he wanted it.

He thought and thought and planned and plotted, yet no answer came.

Until one day he confided in one of his closest advisors – a wicked fairy with flame-red hair and a thornblade smile, whose favourite thing was to cut and kill the mudchildren they stole from their cradles.

The advisor listened and then said, “I know a way we can rule over the entire fairy kingdom.”

For a day and a night followed by a night and a day, the wingless fairy and his advisor travelled back into the forest – into the darkest and deepest parts where the light barely glanced, and the thickets tangled and snarled, and the only flowers that grew looked like broken hearts.

And in that deep, dark heart of the wild, an act was committed that was so heinous that it could never be told or written – not by bee, or bird, or fae.

It opened up the woods to an evil that had never yet existed.

It meant the wingless fairy became a King.

It allowed him to build an army that threatened to devour everything in the forest. 

And all but the most faithful soldiers had their wings sliced away in deference to the King. They still could fly. But only by using new, _black_ magic. By possessing ravens and crows and turning them into mindless steeds.

All the other fairies of the forest had guessed that there was trouble brewing.

None of them could ever have suspected how much. 

***

There is another way to start this story, in a very different world and a very different time. The world had spun hundreds of times since the day the King unleashed black magic in the ancient forest.

Dawn was just breaking, the hem of the sky beginning to whiten, and as the sun rose something strange was happening.

Two fairies – whose lives had been carved between nightmares – ran into each other in the land of dreams.

“Who are you?” They said at the same time. Again in unison: “Wait. You first.”

They stared at each other – eyes the colour of an autumn sky met a gaze that was cold and silver as the moon. Two sets of attention narrowed. Silence hung in the air like a new promise.

The first fairy to break the silence was a grumpy fellow and small even for one of the little people. His name was Yndrew and he was a Wild fairy, one who lived alone in the ancient woods, fending for himself and refusing to join a Court. He had had quite enough of false protections and lies and the cruel fae who wanted nothing more than to scour his magic from his bones. He preferred to fight the forest on his own terms. He also preferred when intrusive idiots like this sky-eyed stranger stayed _out_ of his dreams.

“This is my dream,” said Yndrew. “Get out.”

The second fairy scowled. “Who said this was _your dream_ ? I’m here too. It could be _mine_.”

“Unlikely.”

“As likely as it is unlikely.”

“Did you even know that this _was_ a dream until I told you.”

“Yes,” said the dream-intruder though he did not look as certain as he sounded. 

“Sure, you did,” Yndrew said. He shook his wrists and drew his thornblades from where he’d strapped them to his arms. “I am a moon fairy. This is _my_ dream. And you will now _wake up_.”

“Wait—”

But Yndrew did not wait. He threw his knives, _snicker-snack._ They struck the stranger in the chest, _whumpf._ The fairy with sky for eyes looked down at the hilts, mouth an o-gape of surprise and then he vanished. 

And that, dear readers, is why Yndrew the moon fairy did not have nice things.

***

All his life Yndrew had been told by those around him that he was _difficult_.

When he was younger, Yndrew didn’t understand what this meant – he didn’t _feel_ difficult.

He didn’t set fire to trees like the sun fairies, or sprout angry roots like the earth fairies, or conjure localised lightning storms like the sky fairies, or turn his thornblades on anyone who didn’t deserve it (why should he hold back when they never did?). He thought about doing more – how revenge might taste all the time, how he could truly _hurt_ the fairies that hurt him – but he didn’t do those things. Not then. He grew up quiet and clean and his mind was sharp as a thistle. His face, which was pale and angular, was impassive. He was only as violent as he needed to be to survive, and even then he preferred direct methods that were easy, fast, effective. As far as Yndrew was concerned, there was little about this that made him _difficult_.

He was older now.

He had seen many more turns of the year than he ever expected, and he understood that the fairies around him found him difficult because of his silences, the weight of them when everyone else so loved to natter and chatter and tell tales far taller than themselves.

They also found him difficult because he preferred to be solitary, which left them at a loss of how to interact with him. Fairies were all about joining in – dancing and trouping and pranking and sharing magic through their Courts, none of which Yndrew liked to do. 

And then there was the third thing that made him difficult, the worst crime of them all: he wasn’t just a _moon fairy_ , he was a _dreamer_.

Yndrew dreamed the way other people breathed. He would often leave his body sitting amid the branches of a tree or in the shade of a flower, whilst his mind would slip away to the land in between wakefulness and sleep. He could journey across whole landscapes that way – flying above the forest through a bird’s beady eye, skimming over a distant lake with a fleet of dragonflies, tasting the sweetness of fresh honey from within a hive of bees. 

He could let himself _want_ in dreams – to want the horizon, to want to travel beyond the forest, beyond the land of mud men, to go further than any fairy or beast else had ever gone, to see the wild places that sprawled endless and everchanging, to touch stars.

In dreams, he wasn’t bothered by the whims of the other fae – the bruising hands, the wicked magic, the cruelties exacted for their pleasure and his pain. He could allow himself to dream of companionship that didn’t come with conditions, family that didn’t necessitate self-sacrifice.

Still, he had never dreamed another person.

Not a _real one_.

Not a creature like the sky-eyed fairy, who made his tongue thick and the air down his throat so hot that his lungs could barely believe it was still oxygen. Just looking at him had been like breathing in autumn sunshine on a frosty morning: so fresh that Yndrew’s skin stung all over. He had been all the shades of a dying forest – red and gold and freckled skin.

Yet despite the novelty, the uncanniness of there being an _intruder_ in his _dreams_ , Yndrew had thrown his thornblades with deadly precision, understanding as soon as they left his fingers that he was never going to see the sky-eyed fairy again. That he was _being difficult_ and he was banishing something that was – well, he would never know what it was or could have been.

Fortunately, or unfortunately for Yndrew, he was wrong.

Fate had other ideas in store for them both - and that is what led to a tale so curious.

The sky-eyed fairy was there again the next night.

And the next.

And the one after that.

No matter how many times Yndrew banished him, the stranger was always back and waiting by the time Yndrew stepped into the land between sleep and awake. Sometimes he sat, blinking slow and sleepy like he thought he was waking up. Other times, he was alert and fierce, mouth a grim line and body ready to fight. 

Sometimes he would try asking for a reprieve: “Can you not spike me with those things again? I’ve got bruises in the real world and I really can’t afford to get slowed down right now.”

Yndrew would twirl his thornblade between his fingers, amused by how carefully the other fairy watched the knife’s edge spin over his knuckles.

“No,” Yndrew would say.

Blue eyes would glitter with anger, the small shoulders would bunch, and with a _fwick-fwack-boof_ , Yndrew would banish him all over again. 

***

It went on this way for nearly three full blooms of the moon.

Each time they dreamed, it began in Yndrew’s garden – the one he created as a waystation between worlds, so that he could shift out of the humdrum of daily life (so he could escape the cruelties of Court, the pawing hands, the ruinous magic). It was a twilit space, where the darkness in the sky was always thinning, and a bird always flew across the sky as if to return to far off mountains, and lily flowers were always just opening in the rays from the moon, which always hung on high like a memory.

Yndrew had nurtured his mind garden with the tenderness of a florist and the dedication of a farmer. He’d planted seeds there, tended to the earth, nurtured paths. He’d treasured the garden as the one thing that was his and his alone. His retreat. His escape. His centre of power. 

Only now it wasn’t.

Now he had a guest.

Each time they dreamed, Yndrew noticed something new about the intruder – the blue vein in his throat, the narrow slope of his shoulders, the way his auburn hair curled about his ears, the way he dressed in mud man fabrics, the fact that he never flared his wings in defiance or anger or made any movement with them at all despite the glint and gloss of his eyes, the furious bow of his mouth.

The lack of wing movement intrigued him – he could see the stranger had wings, see the shimmer of the chitin, an orange iridescence. Most fae used their wings to emphasise their points, to demonstrate their feelings, to demand and threaten and obfuscate. After all, for little people fairies had very big emotions – too big perhaps, as it seemed to Yndrew that their unkindness could run cavern deep and their spite spiral as high as the clouds. His anger, for certain, was fathomless and sure, a rushing river through his soul and his magic. 

And yet this little fae who stole into Yndrew’s dreams and left him breathless, made no such gestures. Just like Yndrew himself, the stranger held himself with the poise of someone who refused to give any more than what was offered.

He had learnt to hide. It didn’t suit him.

Yndrew had a feeling that the sky-eyed fairy would be beautiful if he let himself go. Unforgivably so. 

***

Yndrew’s interest in his dream intruder blossomed like the blushing winter cyclamen.

Yndrew found himself thinking about the stranger even when he was awake. Between dealing with the new brother that had tried to lay claim to him and the cousin who was determined to adopt him, Yndrew shouldn’t have had time to dwell on the fairy who haunted his sleep.

Autumn, however, wouldn’t let him forget.

He’d hear the rustle of trees and remember the myriad shades of the stranger’s hair, glimpse the sky between clouds and have his mind fill with memories of narrow-eyed irritation. Just drawing his thornblades was enough to trigger nuisance ideas and disturb his daydreams.

It was becoming a problem.

“Why do you keep coming here?” Yndrew asked one night when yet again the other fairy appeared, looking rumpled and annoyed.

Sky-blue eyes turned to slits as he glowered back at Yndrew. “You really think I’d turn up by _choice,_ just to get stabbed every night? You claim you’re the dream fairy or whatever, it’s you who needs to sort your stupid magic out and stop bringing me here.”

Yndrew rolled his eyes. He considered the question.

The stranger did raise an interesting point. _Was it Yndrew’s magic doing this? If so, why? And how had it latched onto a fairy that he’d never even met?_

It was a question he decided was worth trying to answer.

For the last time, he threw his knives – saw the spark of irritation in that sharp little face as the stranger was once again thrust from his dream – and forced himself back into wakefulness too. It was not much fun. He much preferred to be asleep and dreaming. 

But needs must, as the saying went, and for the next few days he had a new routine, speaking to the bees, asking them about dreams and whether it was possible for them to collide, for non-dreamers to slip into another’s dream, whether there were any other stories of fairies like Yndrew.

The bees were very intrigued – they buzzed and bumbled and promised to talk to the swallows. Likewise, the questions much entertained the swallows – they swooped and trilled, and promised to ask the trees and the wind, the dryads and naiads and the sleepy old ents. Soon the whole forest was whispering about the dreamer – _he’s dreaming, he’s dreaming, the dreamer is dreaming –_ but there were no answers to be had, no tales of similar magics.

Yndrew sighed. If the bees didn’t know and the birds didn’t know, and all the forest was muttering with curiosity, then it seemed very likely that no one knew, which left him with only one option.

Talking to his unwanted guest. 

***

Talk they did.

It started cautiously, with Yndrew’s thornblades drawn and his intruder kept at a safe distance.

Yndrew learnt that the fairy went by the name: Néill.

“Is that your true name?" 

“It’s the truest I’ve ever had.”

“I’m Yndrew.”

“Is that your true name?”

“It’s the only one you’re getting.”

He also learnt that Néill was not a wild fairy. Nor did he belong to a Court. He claimed to be a house fairy – a brownie.

Yndrew didn’t know why, but he was sure this was false. Not because he knew very much about the fae that lived in the homes of mud men, who chose to spend their lives serving in giant houses made of stone carved out of the earth, wood stolen from the forests.

But he did know four things: that brownies were made of dust and grime, and brownie faces crooked with time; that brownie wings were feeble and grey, and no brownie ever came out in the light of the day.

So Yndrew was quite sure that Néill wasn’t a brownie. He was so clearly quite the opposite – brownies were meant to be night fairies, just like Yndrew. Néill was not a night fairy. Néill was fine boned and too pretty. He seemed to shine, freckles like the pollen that hung between trees when caught by the sunlight. Yndrew kept spotting them at the most inopportune times, mapping the scatter of them across Néill ’s cheeks and shoulders and the curve of his throat.

“How do you stay hidden from them?” Yndrew asked. “From the mud men?”

“Cover ourselves in soot from their fires, or dust from their walls. It depends on the house.”

“You move… house?” That didn’t sound right to Yndrew either. He was certain house fairies were meant to stay in one place – to fix things and clean things and be generally useful.

“All the time. I don’t think I’m a very good house fairy.”

Yndrew let out a snort. “I can believe that.”

“You know, it would be nice if you’d answer one of my questions some time.”

“Go on then.”

Néill looked so surprised – mouth in a delicate ‘oh’. “What?”

“Is that your question?”

“Huh? No. I wanted to know… I mean… I have questions.”

Yndrew rolled his eyes. “Go on, the suspense is too much.”

“Lots of questions.”

“You’re keeping me on rose hooks here, Néill .”

Néill looked increasingly sheepish – cheeks a shade of pink that did something to Yndrew’s stomach. “Can you tell me about this place?”

Yndrew had wondered when that might come up. It was, after all, the reason they were both here. This dream garden that he’d created. This space between worlds, between freedom and the forest.

“It’s a dream,” he said, truth for truth. “One of mine. Oh, come, no need to frown. Is it so unbelievable?”

“No… it’s… amazing. That’s amazing. You’re amazing. This place is all in your head?”

“That’s generally how dreams work.”

“But _how?_ Why am I here?”

“If I knew why, I wouldn’t have to keep stabbing you.”

“And what—”

"My turn.” Yndrew stopped him, enjoying the little pout. “Tell me about the day in the life of a house fairy.”

And Néill – with only a modicum of hesitation – told him.

Told Yndrew about how brownies were meant to be invisible helpers in the lives of mud people – that it was all about reciprocity, the mud men leaving out milk and honey in exchange for fairy support with their homes.

Told Yndrew about how his mother came from a family of hat-makers – that Néill could make a perfect pair of shoes, weave the most intricate of cloths, could cut and carve for any carpenter, knead and mix for any baker.

Told Yndrew that for all that he could sew and carve and bake, he didn’t think he was a very good house fairy. He would much rather prank and trick and cast illusions on the silly, lumbering mud men. He hated to stay under the radar simply because these giants were too small-minded to be able to cope with the existence of creatures beyond their comprehension, despite their size. He hated how his mother tried to domesticate him – and how she would bind his wings down, cover them with dust, and force him to live as if he didn’t have wings at all.

“She binds your wings?”

Néill ’s jaw clenched shut.

Yndrew wished he hadn’t spoken.

But it sounded so much like the ill-treatment he’d heard about from Aaron, and for the umpteenth time, he wondered if he had been any worse off without parents than these beaten boys with their brutal mothers. They seemed no less cruel than the fairies he grew up with.

“I never had a mother,” he told Néill . A deeper truth for those Néill had given him. “I almost did once, but it came to nothing.”

***

Somehow this became routine.

Nights spent with a stranger who was no longer a stranger. Questions asked and answers given little by little. A thousand tiny truths spread over year –Lammas to Mabon through to Yule and then Imbolc and the year kept turned and kept turning, winter turning back into spring.

Yndrew talked about Nicky and Aaron – the family he’d never known but discovered recently.

 _Was it too late?_ He asked Néill , accepting when Néill said that it was always too late until you decided it wasn’t.

Néill shared his truths – that his mother was a house fairy, but his father was a wild fae. He shivered at his father’s name and Yndrew knew he would kill them if he ever met the monster who made Néill look so small and scared.

Néill also confided how many days he spent only flying in his head – soaring over the green fields and dancing between trees. He would imagine singing to the sun and the sky, pirouetting with the wild things and rejoicing in the fresh air. He yearned for freedom and to know what his wings might look like clean and in bright morning light.

“My mother hates my wings. They’re too much like _his_.” 

Yndrew took his hand, took him through the dream garden and opened up Néill ’s mind to the possibility of flight as a wild fae, a creature of the forest.

“Fly,” he said.

“How?” asked Néill.

Yndrew cupped Néill ’s face between his hands, “Néill ,” he said. “You have to dream.”

Between the hours of dusk and dawn, Yndrew showed Néill how to see the world through a hundred lives – to fly as goldfinches and chaffinches, blue feathered starlings and chirruping robin redbreasts; to see the forest like a creature of water or air or fire or earth; to understand trees and rocks, meadows and streams. He taught Néill how to dream.

Slowly, slowly, as slowly and surely as the summer waned, Néill began to loosen in Yndrew’s presence. To trust him. To let his wings unfurl from his spine, and flutter in the crepuscular light of Yndrew’s mind.

His wings were beautiful, made up of the shimmering colours of the dawn.

 _There was no way,_ Yndrew thought, _absolutely none, that Néill was meant to stay a brownie. He was too much like a dream thing - almost a hallucination._

And so the wheel of life turned and the seasons passed, neither fairy noticing that their relationship was changing.

And neither realising that they were already running out of time.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts, feels, hit me! You know I live for your comments. 
> 
> Also I am so so so so so sorry to everyone who was waiting for this - I unfortunately caught coronavirus early on in the UK and it completely wiped me out. I'm now back on my feet so the edits are happening slowly but surely now. Will be posting regular updates over the next little while.
> 
> As ever, you can also find the play list here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2GZ9hRQWhUxWC80nyCppa9?si=30LYtL2TRuuTY6uXHjuGqg
> 
> And the pinterest here: https://pin.it/2gZZX4j

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts, feelings, hit me? I live for your comments.


End file.
